


Words Left Unsaid

by priinceofheart



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Albino Dave Strider, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Roommates, how do I even tag this, its not obvious but if you know you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24063079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/priinceofheart/pseuds/priinceofheart
Summary: On his way to bed, Karkat notices Dave's light on in his room and goes to remind him not to stay up all night again.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 1
Kudos: 94





	Words Left Unsaid

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and right now, you find yourself staring dully at the credits to one of your favourite movies. Or, what used to be one of your favourite movies, until you rewatched it over a thousand times on the meteor. It started getting old after the first few times, but with nothing better to do, you and Dave tended to rewatch the same collection of movies over and over again. Tonight, after a little over seven years, you decided to revisit one of them.

It was just as you remembered, it had all the same love interests, the same twists and conflicts...You sigh, grabbing the remote to turn off the TV. Glancing over to the clock, you see that it is, in fact, two in the morning, and decide to call it a night. You stand up and stretch, your body a little strung tight after sitting down and doing nothing but binge movies for hours on end.

After turning off the lights downstairs and making sure the door was locked, you headed upstairs. You stopped by the bathroom to brush your teeth, and almost grab Dave’s toothbrush in the dark. You, of course, noticed this and redirected your hand before you even touched it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Once you’re done with that, you finally head to your room, exhausted and not looking forward to doing anything tomorrow.

On your way to your room, you pass by Dave’s and stop, noticing light peeking out from underneath his door. You feel like you should remind him to go to sleep, lest he forgets to do it himself, leaving him groggy and exhausted the next day. Before you can think any better of it, you find yourself knocking on your hivemate’s door, waiting for a few seconds before you open it.

Just like you’d expected, you find Dave in front of his turntables and other such mixing equipment (you’re not so familiar with the terms for it all), seemingly engrossed in his music. As you approach him, you can hear him muttering to himself, and you can’t help but smile at that. You find it rather endearing that he has little traits such as this, not that you’d ever admit it to his face.

You tried being a little courteous of his skittish nature by being relatively noisy as you entered his room, but it seems that it was all lost on deaf ears. You doubt he can hear you with his headphones on, and if he does, he hasn’t made any slight indication that he’s aware of your presence yet. You stop by his side, quietly musing over what might be the best way to get his attention, before deciding to just simply place your hand on his shoulder. That’ll be easy enough, right?

Reaching your hand out, you set it gently on his shoulder, trying your hardest not to startle the absolute shit out of him. The last time that happened, you found yourself with a sword at your neck, and you’re not too keen on repeating that incident. He stiffens up at first, but slowly relaxes as he realizes it’s just you there. You swear that the expression on his face had turned almost grossly affectionate when he saw you, if only for a few fleeting seconds. Of course, that’s likely just your heart playing tricks on you to get you to think you might actually have a sliver of a chance with him. That doesn’t stop your heart from stuttering at the sight if it, though.

For a second, you forget what you had even come up here to do and just stare at him stupidly, your tongue feeling like a dead weight in your mouth. It’s not until he shifts again that you realize your hand is still on his shoulder, and quickly remove it to keep things from getting too awkward. He slides his headphones down so they’re hanging around his neck and turns to face you.

“Sup, ‘Kat?” You can tell by the way his voice sounds that he’s exhausted, though he may not want to admit it. His accent is more pronounced than usual, his words laden with that southern drawl you’ve found yourself increasingly fond of over the years. “Couldn’t go without me for five minutes, huh?” He teases, stretching out as best as he can while sitting down. You pretend not to notice the little bit of his stomach showing as his shirt hitches up. “You’re going through Strider withdrawal already, and it hasn’t even been, what, ten minutes or so?” He gives you a little, tired smile, as if hours haven’t passed since the last time you last saw him. For a Time god, he sure can be blind to the passage of time when he’s engrossed in something he‘s interested in.

You give yourself a little mental shake, composing yourself quickly enough to give him some kind of response.

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Strider, but it’s been at least five and a half hours since we last saw each other face to face,” You say, crossing your arms. He seems a little surprised by that, judging by the way his eyebrows rise above his shades as he lets out a small “huh”. “And honestly, I would’ve just gone straight the fuck to bed if I trusted you not to stay up until some ungodly hour in the morning.”

For a few seconds, he doesn’t say anything, and you think you might’ve messed up somehow. You open your mouth to backtrack, but he manages to come up with something to say before you can get anything out. “Damn, that’s kind of gay.” He says, causing you to sputter stupidly. “Didn’t know you actually cared about me that much, bro, I’m touched.” He jokes, giving you what might be yet another disgustingly fond smile. You’d almost think he was being genuine if you weren’t used to his bullshit by now.

“Oh please, I’m not completely fucking heartless.” You scoff, rolling your eyes as you cross your arms. “And it’s not like I _want_ to be subjected to the literal fucking torture that is you running on two hours of sleep, even _I’m_ not that much of a masochist.” He mutters something you don’t quite catch, but you ignore it. “It doesn’t make it _gay_ either. Seriously, what the fuck is up with you braindead chucklefucks making every little thing about your weird human sexuality?!“

“Oh, c’mon,” He nudges you lightly, the corner of his mouth still turned just slightly upward. He seems to smile more around you, you note. Though, you’re not sure if that’s because he enjoys your company, or if he just doesn’t feel the need to keep a straight face around you. You don’t mind, either way. “I don’t make everything about my weird human sexuality, only the gay things, like you worrying about my wellbeing. That’s totally gay as all hell, dude, Dirk’s got nothing on you.”

You open your mouth to say something, but Dave starts talking again before you have the chance to get anything out of your mouth. “Seriously, they should get you to plan the next pride parade, that’s how gay this whole thing is.” He pauses, thinking about something for a second. “Shit, do we even have pride parades anymore?” He asks, like you have any clue as to what that even is. “For all I know those could’ve died along with the rest of the population of old Earth, and I wouldn’t have even noticed. How many other things have ceased to exist after everyone was fuckin’ slaughtered by meteors or troll Hitler? Goddamn, how haven’t I had this absolutely shocking revelation earlier in life...” He starts muttering to himself, almost like he’s forgotten you were there.

“ _Jesus fucking Christ._ ” You pinch the bridge of your nose, shaking your head as he rambles on to himself. “Are you done yet?” You say after awhile, snapping him out of his train of thought. “Good. Now that I have your attention, I’m going to chose to ignore literally every single goddamn thing that just came out of your mouth, seeing as it’s two in the morning and I don’t have the time or patience to unpack everything you said, and remind you that you need to go to sleep at some point. Or don’t, I don’t give a shit.” You shrug, trying to come off as indifferent.

He pulls out his phone and checks the time, and mutters a quiet “damn,” to himself. You’re not sure why he didn’t just check his own internal clock, seeing as that would’ve taken less effort than pulling out his phone, but don’t comment on it. You decide to just chalk it up to him being tired enough to forget about his own powers, for what definitely wouldn’t be the first time since you’ve moved in with him.

“Guess you’re right, huh? Didn’t realize it was that late.” He takes his headphones off from around his neck and stands up, stretching out his long limbs once again. You find yourself looking at that very same patch of skin that shows when his shirt rises up, and you’re fairly certain he saw you this time. “Yeah, I should get to bed soon, don’t want to miss out on my much needed beauty sleep, not that I need it to keep myself looking as perfect as I do.”

“Whatever,” You huff, though you can’t help but give him a little smile. Feeling that you’ve long since accomplished your goal of reminding him to sleep, you decide that it’s time you left him to his own devices. “Just don’t stay up too late jerking yourself off in front of a mirror, we’ve got shit to do tomorrow.” And with that said, you turn away from him and go to leave his room.

Right as you were about to leave, he speaks up again, his voice stopping you at the door. “Hey, Karkat?” His voice is oddly soft, and when you turn to look at him, he’s not looking at you. You know that he’s not, because he’s nervously fidgeting with his sunglasses in his hands.

“What is it now, Dave?” You huff, crossing your arms. He looks up at you, you can see his ruby red eyes shaking and sometimes making jerky movements before settling back on you, just as they always tend to do when he’s not wearing his shades.

“I..” He swallows thickly, looking away from you again. He keeps opening and closing his mouth, like he wants to say something but can’t bring himself to. Eventually, he stops and sighs, shaking his head as he places a hand on his forehead in the same way he usually does when he’s anxious about something. “Nothing.” He says, taking a shuddery breath. Whatever it is he wanted to say, he’s clearly not ready to get it off his chest yet. “Never mind, goodnight.”

You hesitate before leaving, wondering just what was up with that, and why Dave looked so nervous about it. “Goodnight.” You say, finally leaving him to go sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Had the thought for this at literally 6 am yesterday and couldn't sleep until I wrote it. The funny thing is, the thought I had relates to almost nothing in this fic, it was just a small detail at the very end of the fic. 
> 
> That's right, my entire motivation for this fic was not any of the bullshit you see here, it was just Dave's shaky eyes. AKA nystagmus, uncontrollable repetitive eye movements. I always see people writing/drawing Dave as albino, and I personally love the headcanon, but, as an albino person, I always notice people leaving out certain drawbacks of it. It's like they're always more focused on the appearance part of it (fair skin, light hair) that they don't actually really read up on it much. 
> 
> First of all, if Dave having red eyes automatically means he's albino, that just means he has ocular albinism. You can have this kind of albinism and still be dark skinned. Ocular albinism reduces the amount of pigmentation in the iris, the coloured part of the eye, and the retina, the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. Essentially, due to the lack of pigmentation in his eyes, Dave wouldn't have perfect vision. 
> 
> His vision would be severely impaired and he would have troubles with judging depth perception. There are other conditions that come along with ocular albinism too, such as nystagmus (the shaky eyes), strabismus (eyes not looking in the same direction), and photophobia (light sensitivity). 
> 
> For me, my vision is 20/200, meaning what the average person with 20/20 vision can clearly see from 200 metres away, I have to be 20 metres close to to see. I have strabismus, nystagmus, and photophobia. My glasses correct my strabismus and tint outside to help with my photophobia. The nystagmus isn't even really something I can notice, honestly, but I've been told it gets worse when I'm tired or my eyes have been overworked.
> 
> Dave, in theory, could have prescription shades. Of course, that means nobody else can wear them unless they want to harm their vision or get a headache, but at least it'll help his eyes. It'll correct his strabismus and help deal with the light sensitivity, but the nystagmus will stay the same. 
> 
> So, yeah.   
> TL;DR: In this fic, Dave has ocular albinism and nystagmus, which is why his eyes were shaking. Whether or not he has oculocutaneous albinism (lack of pgiment in the skin/hair) is up to you. 
> 
> I did *not* mean for this to be so long, but I just really wanted to ramble about this.


End file.
